This invention relates to cleaning apparatus and in the preferred form of the invention the cleaning apparatus has been devised particularly for the cleaning of the external surfaces of the four cups, the claw tubes and the claws of milking apparatus used in the milking of a cow.
In use, these surfaces are often splashed with urine or mud, for example, and before reuse it is necessary that they be cleaned to prevent possible contamination of the milk. At present it is usual to use a scrubbing brush or the like to separately clean the external surfaces but this is a time consuming process, especially where a number of sets of cups are in use, and it was with this problem in mind that the present invention was devised. However, the present invention does have applications in cleaning other articles in other fields of use.
New Zealand patent specifications Nos. 31173 and 73214 both describe arrangements of cleaning apparatus employing movable brushes. These suffer from the disadvantages that they are a little more complex to construct than the present invention, and that it is more difficult to achieve a firm brushing action than is possible with the fixed-brush construction of the present invention. The apparatus of these specifications also suffer from the disadvantage that the brushes do not actually define a cavity between them, but they are merely positioned within a cavity, spaced from each other, thus resultant in incomplete cleaning of the article surface with each movement.
New Zealand patent specification No. 159234 also discloses a cleaning apparatus with fixed cleaning means, but, like those referred to above, these are also spaced from each other and do not define the cavity between them.